I was just chatting with my good friend Brian Edmondson about his blog. He worries so much about what to write that guess what happens?… he doesn’t do it. It’s hard for him to write anything and then, when he finally does, he agonizes over titles and descriptions and such.
It’s NOT that difficult, and you shouldn’t be making it that difficult for yourself. Really.
If you’re writing a business blog, it’s true that you should be writing stuff about your niche. But if you look at some of the popular biz blogs like Shoemoney, for example. Not all of his posts are about business, though they may be loosely related. This week he posted about being at the Playboy Mansion for a visit. Not exactly marketing, but… he puts himself totally into that blog and I love reading it.
I also want to point to Seth Godin’s blog. His posts are often just a paragraph or two, but wow! Lots of great advice crammed into those, if you read them regulary, you know what I mean. I actually emailed him yesterday and asked for a short email interview, and he turned me down. No problem. I completely understand how busy he must be, but well… I’m going to do a lot more commenting on his blog and stay in his loop, you know? He won’t easily forget who I am and maybe one day, he’ll say yes. Right? Do you think I’ll analyze every word in every comment… hell no!
My point is that I really don’t agonize over anything I write… not blog posts, not articles, not books, not emails to important people or whatever. I mean, I got Ralph Nader and Gloria Steinem to agree to work with me on their biographies, right? After that, I was convinced that it wasn’t really how I wrote things that mattered as long as they were readable, but how much of me showed through. If I could touch those people in a way that made them think, “Hey, I like this person. I think I can work with her,” that’s what mattered the most.
Just be yourself. It makes writing a whole lot easier.